From the Prologue of Ochrid
Born in Constantinople of very illustrious parents. Her father, Anysius Secundus, was a senator, and her mother was the daughter of the famous nobleman Eulavius, who is mentioned in the life of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker. When Olympias came of age, she was betrothed to a certain nobleman, who died before the wedding with this honorable virgin. In vain both the emperor and the rest of her family pressed Olympias to marry another, but she would not hear of it; instead she devoted herself to a God-pleasing life, making from her inherited estate great offerings to churches and generous alms to the destitute. She served in the church as a deaconess, first under Patriarch Nectarius and, after his death, under Saint John Chrysostom. When Chrysostom was sent into exile, he counseled Olympias to remain in the church as before and to serve the Church regardless of who might be patriarch after him. But immediately after the exile of this great saint, someone set fire to the great church, and the conflagration engulfed many notable buildings in the capital. The enemies of Chrysostom accused this holy woman of malicious arson. Olympias was banished from Constantinople to Nicomedia, where she reposed in the year 410, having left a testament that her body be placed in a coffin and cast into the sea, and that wherever the water cast it ashore, there it should be buried. The coffin was cast ashore at a place called Brochthi, where there was a church of the Apostle Thomas. Great healing miracles were manifested through the centuries from her relics. The exiled Chrysostom wrote beautiful letters to the exiled Olympias, which even today can serve as a great consolation to all those who suffer for the sake of the righteousness of God.
